Kenyan high commissioner Isaiya Kabira said December 25 would involve many of the usual religious and culinary routines, even though there would be a break from the tradition of returning to his parents' rural home.

"We go back there and look for a goat that has been fattened already for Christmas, because Christmas is not enough without lots of goat meat, and chicken and we enjoy the barbecues and lots of food," he said.

"We take it not just as a time for rest, away from the office, but also a time to reflect on our religious values and what we stand for ... to get back to the virtues of love, embracing one another and of tolerance, especially."

Mr Kabira, who is eight months into his international posting, said after a morning visit to the Uniting Church, he and his family had been invited for a meal at a Kenyan expat's home.

"No doubt they'll replicate what they would normally do at home, but of course there will [also] be lots of Australian meals there, a bit of lamb barbecued, I guess."

A former print and TV journalist, Mr Kabira spent a decade as press secretary to former Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki.

After experiencing what he has been told will be an extra quiet Canberra at Christmas, the father-of-three will take his wife and children to Batemans Bay for a New Year's Eve set to contrast in scale with the usual celebrations in bustling Nairobi.

Unlike ambassadors from the Nordic countries, whose offices when quizzed last week noted an almost universal holiday trip back to the freezing northern hemisphere, Mr Kabira said a beach visit was a regular January pastime for Kenyans.

The Australian summer's unusually bountiful feast of sport is also set to figure in the commissioner's schedule, even without the usual presence of a Kenyan team at the cricket World Cup.

"I'm looking forward to watching one or two [Asian Cup] football matches in Canberra, and I'm hoping to watch one of the cricket games," he said.